Transcript
Speaker: Two nerds went to college and found each other in the English department basement and became instant friends. Eight years and three degrees later, they're reunited.
Speaker: You're listening to Book Club, the movie, the podcast.
Speaker: Hello everyone and welcome to Book Club the Movie the Podcast where we read, watch, and discuss books and their film adaptations. I'm your host Jen.
Speaker: And I'm your other host Em. We hope you read the book. But if you didn't, here's the summary. Caution, spoilers ahead.
Speaker: Poppy Wright has achieved her dream job as a travel writer for Rest and Relaxation magazine in New York City, but feels as though her life is missing something. Since college, which she dropped out of to pursue her dreams, Poppy has gone on annual vacations with her best friend, Alex Nilsen. They both swear they are not interested in one another, not meant to be, and are only friends, which is kind of believable as they are definitely opposites. Poppy loves talking to strangers while on vacation, traveling anywhere and everywhere, and cracking nonstop jokes.
Speaker: Alex enjoys the occasional trip, but prefers to stay home with a book and his cat, Flannery O'Connor. Two summers ago, their yearly trips ended, and all communications ceased.
Speaker: and Poppy began to miss her friend and the fun times that they had. An upcoming destination wedding offers Poppy a chance to rekindle that friendship, and maybe more.
Speaker: People We Meet on Vacation is a travelogue romance published by Emily Henry in 2021 that explores the meaning of home, complicated pasts, and friends finding romance.
Speaker: Aww. Aww. Emily Henry was born and raised in Ohio. She is a New York Times bestselling author, and the first five of her adult romance books have been optioned for onscreen adaptations, including People We Meet on Vacation, which was released in January of this year, and which Emily Henry dedicated to us, to you, her readers.
Speaker: Double aww. Aw. Most of the other adaptations have not set a release date yet, except for Beatread, which is set to come out in May of 2027. That would be a good one for next summer.
Speaker: it could be really fun. Isn't it going to be in theaters and not? I think it is a theater release and not a streaming service release, so... Time to use the old pen with a light on the end of it so I can write in a dark movie theater.
Speaker: And upset fellow moviegoers. Yeah, and piss some old guy off. Okay, ah if you could take one of Alex and Poppy's trips, ah which would you choose?
Speaker: I would choose Norway, which they didn't actually go to in the book, but hey, um specifically for the ice hotels. I think that would be really great. Yeah, I think that would be really cool. I personally am torn between Croatia and Tuscany.
Speaker: Both sound pretty baller. Mostly, I think I want a vacation that is funded by a travel magazine for really rich people. um Because that sounds lovely. I'll go anywhere, anywhere at all, if somebody else is paying for it. 100%. I don't care at that point. Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, if it's for business and you get to fly business class, right? Which I've never done before. So that would be even better. Even better. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: Director Brett Haley is known for his heartfelt character-driven stories that blend humor, romance, and emotional authenticity. He's directed many movies, beginning with short films before his breakthrough indie feature, I'll See You In My Dreams, which came out in 2015.
Speaker: He is perhaps best known for his work on The Hero, which came out in 2017, and Hearts Beat Loud, which came out in 2018, and most recently for his work on the 2026 adaptation of People We Meet on Vacation.
Speaker: So fun fact, I actually subscribed to Emily Henry's sub stack in preparation for this episode. It's called Emily's Grocery List, which I don't fully understand, but that's a thing. um And I scrolled all the way back to January of this year, which really wasn't that far. It's not like she does one every day.
Speaker: um And she wrote a sweet, heartfelt post about the movie coming out. And in it, she talks about how she thought the movie would fall through due to just like how fickle the film industry can be. And she also praised Brett Haley for not only involving her throughout the process, but also for intentionally considering what fans and readers would want to see. And as we'll talk about much later, there were some notable differences between the book and the movie.
Speaker: But it seems like those changes came with Emily Henry's blessing, so maybe I'm okay with them. You did say that the director seemed like a really genuine person from his like bio on Wikipedia and all of that, and so it's really nice to hear that he is. Yeah.
Speaker: The movie opens with Poppy, played by Emily Bader, on a vacation for her travel writing job at R&R. We see her having an awkward time on vacation and then falling down in the shower, a sequence which is quickly revealed to be more of a daydream when the scene cuts to actual present day with her editor Swapna Bakshmi Highsmith, portrayed, fantastically might I add, by Jameela Jamil, commenting on the poor quality of her writing.
Speaker: Much like the prologue of the book, this sets the tone for Poppy being disenchanted with her job, her bleak and empty refrigerator caused by her always-on-the-go lifestyle, all the while priming her to seek out the next thing.
Speaker: The book takes a slightly different approach. Instead of showing Poppy struggling to thrive in her career right off the bat, Emily Henry opens with a prologue set five summers ago on Sanibel Island in Florida. We immediately see the chemistry and friendship between Poppy and Alex, who's played by Tom Blythe in the movie, and we're introduced to Poppy's philosophy that you can be anyone you want to be on vacation.
Speaker: Then we jump to present day, or this summer, in chapter one, where the book establishes that Poppy's dream job of travel writing for R&R no longer fulfills her, and we also learn that she and Alex aren't as close as they used to be.
Speaker: Why do you think the book opened with a prologue if half the story is already told in flashbacks? Yeah, I mean, the purpose of a prologue is to hook the reader and set the mood, set the tone, which I think that the prologue of this book accomplishes. Alex and Poppy have an interesting dynamic. And without that example of what Poppy and Alex were like five years ago compared to the Poppy that we really encounter in chapter one, readers might not have been as hooked.
Speaker: That makes sense, and I do agree with you. gonna lie, i am really prejudiced against prologues for some reason. We at least did get some context within it in that it happened five summers ago, which I honestly didn't notice when I first read it. Totally fair.
Speaker: um I'm just curious why you're prejudiced against prologues. Like, who hurt you Some really lame prologues that didn't need to exist. like when I can't even tell you what they were because they were so lame and didn't need to exist that they're not in my head anymore. Interesting. Yeah. the thing I've always wondered about prologues is if you're like allowed to skip it, right?
Speaker: I mean, I didn't on this one and I don't think I've ever skipped a prologue, but I've always wondered if I did skip this, what would happen? don't know. That's a great question. Cause I don't even remember what the next chapter is or what happens in it, to be honest. Chapter one.
Speaker: Yeah. It's, it's, she's called into R&R, like, all hands on deck meeting. What, what location are we covering for this summer's issue? Who's traveling where kind of thing? And then it, it kind of talks about, like, the office dynamics. And then I think also in chapter one, we get, like,
Speaker: a conversation like towards the end we get a conversation with her bff rachel and where rachel's like what's wrong honey and she's like but millennial on we forgot about that line yeah millennial on we stop it stop picking on us which as a cusper like i identify with it and then i'm like fuck can i identify with it Am I a millennial?
Speaker: I don't know. I think so. Us 95 Both of my younger siblings are are cuspers, and they like to be like, I'm not that. I'm like, actually, you are Get in line.
Speaker: But I'm both. I'm the in-between bit in the Venn diagram. I'm like, I'm a Zelda, right? I'm a Gen Z elder. I'm then a baby millennial. So...
Speaker: I think the narrative structure of the book is notable. It spans over 12 summers with one central storyline taking place in the present day or this summer. It's not a perfect pattern, but the chapters seem to alternate between then and now, which is maybe like a little simple, but I think it works. It covers a long time span without becoming confusing or without having any major time gaps. Yes, we do get the two years between Croatia and this summer,
Speaker: um but it's still, so you know, we pretty much cover the rest of the years. And it's a lot of life and relationship building to fit into only 360 pages. I think it worked because the the past moments weren't always like these great big long stories. They were just...
Speaker: beautiful moments of their past relationship, which I really liked. I did like those quite a bit. um It was interesting to watch how the past summer chapters also crept up, starting with the 12 summers ago, whenever they first met, and then whenever they went on their first trip, ah all the way up to the two summers ago. ah Two summers ago is what we know as the summer that's going to explain what happened to cause that great big rift between Alex and Poppy. It was like a countdown to launch failure. Yeah, and i think it built tension. Like, obviously we knew they were going to end up together in the end, right? But I partially kept reading to figure out what went sideways two years ago.
Speaker: Right. Do you think the mystery of what happened two years ago was compelling or do you think it was manipulative? Because I don't think it was manipulative, but just like a little bit lame. I mean, it's a low stakes, comforting weeknight kind of novel. It's not really, i don't think it's something that's intended to keep you up until 3am reading because you just have to know what happened.
Speaker: Sure. And i was talking to a coworker not too long ago and also my therapist recently, and they both said that with my life in history, i should probably be reading more comfy, cozy books.
Speaker: But I don't know. i I wanted a little bit more than that. I just did. You needed the drama. I needed more drama. Thank you. Yeah. needed a cortisol spike.
Speaker: Yeah. Yes. Sure. i don't have enough of those in the day-to-day. I don't need somebody to get stabbed in Croatia or anything. i just needed like a couple steps above what happened, maybe. i don't know. You needed a threesome with Bruce.
Speaker: Maybe.
Speaker: Okay, so back to the structure. Back to the structure, yeah. Do you think the story would be as effective if it were told in like a purely chronological order?
Speaker: No, no, I do not. um Not at all. We would have gotten to the two summers ago chapter, like midway through the book. um Then we would have had a whole bunch of whatever else after that. and And then they would have had another falling out closer to the end of the book. And I don't think we would have cared. There wouldn't have been any of the... ah build up to it right yeah i think it would have totally lessened the tension um and kind of like like the emotional journey or the emotional arc of the characters if it was like purely chronological um but i do wonder if she wrote it chronologically and then like just put each chapter on like an index card and shuffled them up you know like um
Speaker: I'm always interested to learn more about like a writer's process behind why they structure things the way they do. And, you know, we're not a big enough podcast to like actually ask Emily Henry, but you know, if if this ever comes across...
Speaker: her life, she can let us know. I would like to talk about genre. This is probably the first romance I have ever read. The closest that I've ever gotten to romance is watching Jane the Virgin on the CW. yeah not Not even lie. Like, that's that's it.
Speaker: That was it. um Do you think this book slash movie is more romance or rom-com? Also, is it literary? do you think it can be both or a combination?
Speaker: I'm just a little... My flabbers are gasted that you've never read a romance. I've never read a romance. What about Pride and Prejudice? Surely you had to read that in school.
Speaker: might have read it in college but I don't think we read the whole thing i don't know yeah
Speaker: We've read Romeo and Juliet for this podcast. I'm not counting that. I'm not counting that. doesn't count. Not what I'm talking about. Not what I'm talking about. I guess I mean like more like modern romances. I've not read them. Haven't read them. Does that make you feel better? i have not read.
Speaker: like have you never read a Nicholas Sparks book? Did you never get curious? No. Going back to, you know, if this is, if this book story movie is like a romance, if it's a rom-com, if it's literary, um i will say this is my first Emily Henry novel. And I don't necessarily identify it as like an M. Hen fan. I definitely missed the whole book talk. Yeah.
Speaker: um hype in during COVID times ah for her and for her books. But um it does seem like Emily Henry writes upmarket contemporary romance. Like her books sort of follow the conventions of the romance genre.
Speaker: some of the tropes but they also explore larger themes about adulthood identity and like happiness you know so I also imagine that her prose is richer and there's more character development than like a grocery store checkout line modest ripper novel type of book which I'll admit I have never read I've never read those either, but the covers were interesting to me. They almost want make you want to pick them up, right? And then you're like, yeah. It's like the equivalent of junk food.
Speaker: Love junk food. I mean, okay, so this book, it does introduce some conventional romance tropes, you know, friends to lovers, opposites attract, vacation romance, and it's it's a slow burn romance, which Emily Henry, she is really good at making it more complicated than that, but not necessarily like subverting those tropes.
Speaker: troops either. um her characters were also so much deeper than I expected, and there were some moments that felt a little bit more literary to me, but like just moments, not the book as a whole. Yeah, I think you're onto something. i think this book is totally written for a reader who wants the familiar emotional beats of romance, but also that same reader wants a little more substance, like believable emotional conflict and having a touch of identity crisis or struggling with adulting, which is so relatable.
Speaker: But speaking of romance, I want to take this conversation to the next level and discuss chapter 26. It's hot. it's hot Yeah, you do. Yeah, you do.
Speaker: so chapter 26, it's hot. The AC in their little Airbnb is broken. Poppy rips open the construction plastic on the balcony because she needs air.
Speaker: Technically, this happened in chapter 24, but I digress. And then it starts to rain. They make sweet, sweet and dirty love on that balcony. in the rain and it's a steamy scene slash chapter without being like overly gratuitous and icky. So I think it works. Maybe because it's written in present tense and first person from Poppy's point of view. I'm not really sure. Or maybe it's because the emphasis is on like their emotional vulnerability, especially after years of avoiding their real feelings. And so the scene, the chapter, the scene is kind of more about that emotional tension rather than purely sexual attention.
Speaker: and I think Emily Henry nailed it. You dork. ah Although, i mean, Poppy, Poppy was like...
Speaker: very into him at one point in a book where she's like, actually, I do think he's hot. And then she does kind of like a mention here and there, like a little horn dog. um But like in a cute way, it was great. We're rooting for them, you know? We are rooting for them, for sure.
Speaker: i do think the book could have been written in a close third person point of view, but we were so deep into Poppy's head that first was probably the better way to go. I do wonder if all of Emily Henry's books are in first person. I haven't read any of the others either. Yeah, don't know. We'll have to read and see. and We do beach read next year. We'll know then. Sure will.
Speaker: I especially appreciated the consent that was happening in this little balcony scene. i remember not too long ago that some people, mainly on the internet, were trying to say that it's impossible to make verbal consent sexy and that stopping to ask if something is okay would be a mood killer. But this book is proof that it absolutely can be hot and not at all a buzzkill. I went back and I counted and Alex asked Poppy four times if what he was doing is okay and it was still
Speaker: hot. Yeah, it was very sexy. And you can also tell the book was written by a woman because I think both characters are like actively communicating. Yes, Alex asks Poppy if this is okay. And then Poppy responds. But she also asked him if what she's doing works for him is working, you know, so um I think that's part of what makes the intimacy work in this novel.
Speaker: And also that Emily Henry just makes it like more than just sex. It's about being known by another person. And with all their banter and the serious chemistry that they have in the book, like it just, I i think the writing's really, really great.
Speaker: However, they had literally like no chemistry on the screen. They did not. Not at all. um There was no sexy consent talk. um It was a very stereotypical, like, we're angry at each other and here's me stamping my little foot. Let's make out. And that was it.
Speaker: Honestly, like it. and And then they didn't even like do it on the balcony. They traded hot outdoor balcony sex for boring indoor sex where there was no air conditioning, which is gross. um I wasn't as into it.
Speaker: Speaking of consent. Was the vasectomy thing in the book weird to you? If either one of them had a condom on them, I guess it would show me that one of them was thinking ahead about this trip, and it would show that they were maybe hoping for something more to happen on vacation, not just reconnecting with a friend. Alex said that he, quote, didn't want to accidentally get anyone pregnant.
Speaker: And I don't know, maybe maybe it wasn't weird and maybe it just caught me by surprise. think it makes sense that Alex got a vasectomy considering how he lost his mother due to complications during childbirth. So childbirth is scary to him. And also considering his response to Poppy's pregnancy scare in Tuscany. You know, he's there for her. He's like, don't worry, you're not going to be a single mom. Like... ah so I love you raise your kid.
Speaker: um i'm here for you, you know? and And then he just like, he sobs, he cries, and she's kind of never seen him cry like that before. However, him getting a vasectomy without talking to Sarah was totally red flag behavior in my mind. um Sarah, who's played by Sarah Catherine Hook in the movie, is his long-term partner at that point. You know, after the Tesco trip, he's purchased a freaking engagement ring And, you know, he didn't even tell her that he was going to get one. Like, it's not that he needed to, like, ask her permission or anything because 100% it's his body, his choice.
Speaker: But, like, the commonly decent thing to do would be to let your girlfriend, hopefully soon-to-be fiancé, know what you're doing with your body.
Speaker: Just, like, have an open line of communication. I've been told that that's important in a relationship. Yeah. Right. Yeah, just a little bit. Alex getting the vasectomy after Tuscany and then saying in the middle of all the steam heat balcony stuff in chapter 26, he says, I think about you all the time, he says, and kisses me slowly, drags his mouth down my neck, goosebumps fluttering out in his wake. I think about this They were still rounding second base at this point, but the fact that he got a vasectomy and was worried in the past about something bad happening to Poppy related to pregnancy or otherwise, I kind of think that he was thinking ahead with getting the procedure.
Speaker: He had her in mind and he got it. I think he got it for her. Yeah, I mean, like, I don't. know that she was ever like, oh, I have to be dating a guy who's had a vasectomy, you know, like. not all. I think she would express it was something that she wanted. She definitely in her like younger years seemed to be like on the fence about if she wanted children someday or not.
Speaker: That's a little harder for me to buy that, that Alex is like, I'm going to get a vasectomy in case Poppy and I have sex someday. Yeah. I viewed that more, that line that you read, more as like, he's he's been yearning.
Speaker: Homeboy is yearning a lot for her. And chapter 26, finally... finally pays off all the yearning. i thought it was a medical yearning. Okay, going to shift topics here, but I want to talk about dialogue because I think dialogue can be really hard to write well, which is weird because we talk all the time. So surely we would know how to write a believable conversation.
Speaker: Right? I would think. But it's not always as effortless as Emily Henry makes it seem. And it's important to note that the cardinal sin of dialogue, or of writing dialogue, is using it to deliver exposition. oh like in ah Big Hero 6, that Disney movie where he's like, what do you mean? Our mom died 10 years ago. And it's like, shut up. Stop talking like that. Nobody talks like that.
Speaker: Yes, and this is a cardinal sin which Emily Henry thankfully does not commit. The book is pretty dialogue heavy in my opinion, but I think it works because she's showing us the relationship through their dialogue rather than telling it.
Speaker: You know, they... interrupt each other comfortably. They can tease without offending. They reference memories and inside jokes without explaining them, which the reader is usually clued into because we've read about it in a previous chapter from however many summers ago. But I think with all of like avoidance being a major theme of the story, Emily Henry is also using that dialogue to tease out what isn't being said. And we as the reader are nudged to kind of like read between the lines. Sometimes it's not so much reading in between the lines is like a really glaringly obvious thing where i think one of them says like, we're not meant for each other. And I read that and I'm like, yeah, sure, whatever.
Speaker: who There were lots of inside jokes within the dialogue that really were not all that funny to me. um So much of it was just repeated over and over and over and over again, like even on the same page. And I get the feeling, I i mean,
Speaker: I know that we're supposed to be along for the ride and we're in on it with the banter, but I really could not get into it. I also thought there were going to be more references to how short Poppy was because it happened like five times within like three paragraphs. I started keeping a running tab. But what I should have done um was actually keep track of how many times i read the phrase sad puppy face. That got old the third time and it just kept coming.
Speaker: Yeah, I do agree that the repetition got old sometimes, especially with the sad puppy face, which was absolutely written no less than 29,000 times. But I wasn't really bothered by kind of like being an observer to their inside jokes, because that felt true to actual real life inside jokes. Like they're really funny to the people they apply to, but they aren't necessarily as funny to outsiders. Yeah. But just found it still like pretty relatable in that we all have inside jokes that make us smile inward when we remember them. And Alex and Poppy's inside jokes like made me think of those for myself. And I agree. Jason and I have inside jokes. And I think I killed our favorite one whenever I put them in our ah wedding vows. Aw, murder.
Speaker: It's fine. I killed it. I killed it dead. I don't think we've said it since. Aww. It's been nine years. Congrats. Thank you. Do you think Poppy's voice or dialogue changed that much from the book to the movie?
Speaker: I think just by nature of the medium, like film instead of text, we lost a lot of Poppy's interiority in the movie. And I think it was fun to be in her brain throughout the book. Like she's chatty, she's quirky, observational. And like that combination makes her pretty funny to me, at least in my mind reading it. I thought she was...
Speaker: pretty humorous. But since the movie takes more of like a third person or observer point of view, as movies typically do, we get a lot less of that in the movie.
Speaker: um What about Alex? Do you think Tom Blythe's portrayal made Alex as quietly funny as he is in the book? No, not even a little bit. Like, I just, no hate to the actor at all, but just...
Speaker: Oh man, it doesn't help that they had zero chemistry. um Like, I don't know why he laughed at any of Poppy's jokes in the movie. If he did at all, I honestly don't even really remember him laughing that much in the movie. I don't know. Just their relationship wasn't like standing out as much. So I don't know. He just kind of there were moments that I think really led to ah his character not working with hers.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. On that note, I think there were some major character differences and things that we lost when we adapted a 360-page novel into a just under two-hour movie.
Speaker: For one, Alex was not tall enough and Poppy was not short enough. I think there was like a four-inch difference between the two of them, but that doesn't really matter as much. I'm happy that I didn't have to hear a bunch of comments about how teeny tiny Poppy is in the movie, at least.
Speaker: Yeah, and in the movie, we sort of lost Poppy's deeper backstory about being bullied in school that followed dirt that followed her throughout the book. And we didn't get to see her being as protective of of her family in the movie as she was in the book or much of the dynamics she shared with her brothers, like, at all.
Speaker: And especially what stood out to me was, like, we didn't really get to see in the movie how... alone poppy felt like even in her own family of five she still felt like a little bit of an outsider you know her parents had each other and her two brothers were also a pair but she was a single person until she met alex oh and then and she had these like amazing quirky vintage clothes that were described in the book and those didn't really make it so much to the screen
Speaker: I don't think they were on screen at all. At one point she was, she described herself as looking like a traffic cone and it's because she was wearing a bright orange jumpsuit. That didn't make it to the movie and I'm bummed.
Speaker: Now, Alex also had a fully fleshed out backstory that really lended itself more to the vasectomy thing that we learned about in chapter 26 on the balcony. um His mother died during childbirth with his youngest brother, David. He's the one having a wedding.
Speaker: Alex was the one to help raise his brothers and he had a really hard time feeling happy in his day-to-day life but was joyful or naked slash vacation Alex while he was with Poppy. On that note, the movie just like completely removed Alex's other two brothers. Like in the movie, he's one of two, not four. which I think changes the severity of the burden he faced in his childhood as the eldest child trying to take care of his family when his father was too depressed to be a parent, not to mention the financial burden that he bore in college to help with tuition for one of his brothers.
Speaker: But I don't know. Do you think the movie gave enough context for Alex's choices or did they kind of come out of nowhere? um I think there was zero context and he was really just kind of a fuddy-duddy for no reason other than that was just his personality. yeah I would like to kind of put myself into Sarah's shoes, ah his long-term girlfriend.
Speaker: Would I consider Alex and Poppy's hidden feelings for one another as a form of cheating? I'm not a jealous person myself, um but I think I would be more than a little bit pissed off that my boyfriend was super close to this weird, loud girl, but would also feel maybe a little bit conflicted since I came into the picture after their friendship had already been established.
Speaker: I don't know. i What would you do? So I think I am a jealous person. um So I think I would take issue with it regardless. However, I think it's interesting to note that in the book, Sarah comes into the picture after Poppy, right? That friendship's already there and established. It's a part of who Alex is. She's a part of his circle.
Speaker: so Sarah coming into that and being the new person, i think would kind of have to accept it maybe until things kind of advanced in their relationship. Um, but in the movie, they just totally change, change that background story. And Sarah is the high school girlfriend. So Sarah came before Poppy. And i think if I was high school girlfriend, Sarah, I would absolutely be like, you can't hang out with that bitch. yeah It's me or her, you know?
Speaker: Yeah. it's me or her you know like it it It definitely changes the dynamic because Sarah came first, right? Like Sarah was part of his life first. And I can see trying to like take the higher ground, but also fuck the higher ground, you know, like, you know, I eventually would have just been like, oh, whatever, like go make out already.
Speaker: Get a room. I think I'm learning something about myself here. I am literally the least jealous person ever. I will find out because historically, not Jason, he's perfect. But like in the past, I found I had like a slight inkling that something might be about to go on. So about to happen. so i catastrophically dumped him over Christmas. um don't Don't even think about it. I will find out. But Jason has friends that are girls.
Speaker: my My high school boyfriend, actually, one of his best friends was a girl. And I was like, it's fine, because I know what's going on here. And and nothing ever happened. I would know. I find things out. Yeah.
Speaker: I think I would find things out, too.
Speaker: Let's talk about endings. There are definitely spoilers ahead, so keep listening at your own risk. Let's talk about the emotional climax of the movie and about how it was different in the book. Yeah, so let's break it down.
Speaker: Near the end of the book, while catching their flights out of LAX, Alex learns that Poppy was not on a work trip and she was treating their week together in Palm Springs as a vacation from her real life.
Speaker: He feels used, he feels like the nights they shared together weren't real and that he was wrong to have found happiness in their moments of connection. and I also kind of wonder if he's afraid that Poppy only loves like vacation Alex and not the real him. And these feelings are compounded when Poppy can't explain what it is that she wants out of her life or what her life could look like with Alex being a more regular presence in it.
Speaker: And just that emotional conflict they face isn't really that she lied. It's more about whether they are choosing each other or if they're both simply escaping their individual lives with one another.
Speaker: Right. And the movie lets him know about the work trip lie like halfway through and it doesn't really matter. um In fact, he's like totally fine with the lie. They have sex with each other like five minutes later. They only break up at the end of the wedding scene when Poppy can't immediately say what her plans are and what she wants to do, which seems a little unfair because they literally just became a thing. And yet Alex is ready to DTR and Poppy just wants to enjoy outdoor spaces in the rain, which is an admittedly like a little bit irresponsible, but
Speaker: not a cause to fully break up, right? Yeah, it did feel like a little bit of an unearned overreaction in the movie, whereas in the book, I totally could see where Alex was coming from. but like, either way, they do end up together in the end. And in both the book and the movie, we get to see Poppy and Alex finally be together and like be happy.
Speaker: True, they do end up together. But the ending of the movie changed the meaning for me, to be honest. Instead of traveling around New York City together as tourists who also live there, like they did in the book, showing that they were both able to compromise and be happy together and find a way to have an ordinary life, the ending of the movie just has them sitting on another beach.
Speaker: It's a little bit too close to their old programming for me. Yeah, I'm not sure it showed as much like personal and relational growth as the book did. But I think the movie lands with the message that we're that that Poppy and Alex are still happiest on vacation and not like Poppy and Alex have learned how to make their ordinary life extraordinary. Like the book seems to to suggest Speaking of endings, I need to tell you what happened whenever I was watching it. um So I was in the bedroom watching it on the big TV and the movie ended and ah Jason was in the next room and could hear the music swelling while they were kissing each other in a ditch. And he yelled, oh, are they kissing?
Speaker: it sounds like they're kissing. Good job, Alan. Way to go. alan Yeah, Alan. I think he was listening to the whole movie, but he just... Who's Alan? Alex.
Speaker: Couldn't have been listening that close. Yeah. he He got the first letter right. And the second. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: All right. It's our favorite part. It's time to nitpick. Pick those k nits. Okay. So I'll go first. So the movie, right? It shows Alex skinny dipping while camping in Canada on their first vacation together. And like, listen, I live in the Pacific Northwest, which I feel like Vancouver is a part of. And let me tell you, no one is skinny dipping this far North in the Pacific. You might literally catch hypothermia because it is so cold. I kind of think that they were just using it as an excuse to get him naked.
Speaker: um Right. Show off that bare butt. I get him But just not, I could not suspect suspend my disbelief, you know. Do they not do polar bear plunges where you live? I don't. They do, but it's, I mean, nobody's getting sexy at a polar bear plunge.
Speaker: You get in, you get out, you get warm, right? This is like, oh my god, we're like a hot 20-somethings. We're gonna naked and fucking make out in the ocean. no Here's my first nitpick. Movie Poppy was obnoxious and...
Speaker: Yeah, the actress is super cute and everything, but I didn't like it. um I think that they were trying to portray her as silly and carefree, like she was in the book. But there were a few moments where she came off as like one of those not like the other girls girls. She was the only person wearing a print t-shirt at her spin class instead of a cute set, and she couldn't get her shoe off the off the pedal thingy. And she ate that great big messy burrito in the car and got it everywhere, even though that was, I think, kind of Alex's fault for slamming on the brakes like that.
Speaker: I didn't find the humor super funny in the books, but I especially didn't think that she was funny in the movie. Yeah, she's definitely like quirky, awkward in the movie. And like, sometimes it works. And sometimes you're like, but okay, we get it enough.
Speaker: forgot I wrote in my notes about, about her in the movie. I was like, it's like Zooey Deschanel if she took Adderall recreationally. Yeah, she did have but a little bit like manic pixie dream girl vibe to her.
Speaker: um So adorkable. Right. Yeah. Another nitpick. So coming from Midwestern hoarder's house, RIP, my dad, um Poppy's childhood home was not embarrassing enough in the movie. There was like no clutter. And... um Yeah, that irked me a little bit. But I do love that they kept the the condoms bit, though. That was funny. I think that the condoms bit was like showing that other people in the world were seeing something that Poppy and Alex weren't, which I liked. I liked that. Yeah. But yeah, the house wasn't embarrassing at all. It was just a normal house and there weren't the two big obnoxious dogs. I think in the book she had two huskies.
Speaker: And that's just more of the characterization that the movie was missing. It was Poppy's big dogs compared to Alex's cat. Opposites attract. Yeah. Yeah. I do have one very short region-specific nitpick.
Speaker: It was a great example of setting for sure. um but reading this book with the broken air conditioning and then walking around California, just absolutely sweating themselves to death ah while i live where the heat index is like approaching 115. It was a special kind of hell. um It was like I was reading the book version of those multisensory movies ah in Brave New World. do you know what i'm talking about?
Speaker: Yeah, that's wild. You're like, girl, same. Okay, so I want to introduce like a new little segment here. um And I want to call it, would you pass the English lit quiz if you only watched the movie?
Speaker: And my response is no. No, I would not. oh Why not, am Because the characters were totally wrong. And if I were writing the quiz for my students, one of the questions that I would have ah used was which two phrases were said over and over and over again throughout the book? Sad puppy face.
Speaker: sad puppy face and something about being short um yeah and also like they cut several travel destinations like we didn't get to see them go to nashville or san francisco or vale or sanibel island or croatia they cut croatia for crying out loud and tuscany was all wrong in the book alex never proposes to sarah But they do talk about possibly getting married and Poppy's very unhappy to hear about it. Alex even bought a ring, one that honestly sounded perfect for Poppy and not for Sarah in the slightest. But still, he never popped a question in the book.
Speaker: He did not. Also, Alex is missing two other brothers, and they changed ah Tom's name to Nam for some reason. Yeah, that was weird. so And there's like a lot of other things they changed. But like we said at the top of the episode, it does seem like...
Speaker: The movie team got Emily Henry's blessing for the changes they had to make. And, you know, it's a certain kind of alchemy to to go from a book to a movie, I think. So we can't it It's a different format. Yeah. It's a different format. I get it Yeah.
Speaker: So I have to ask, are you a book nerd or a movie buff? Hundo no doubt about it. I am a book nerd. What about you? If I have to pick one of them, obviously it's going to be the book. I wasn't a big fan of the movie and I even watched the movie first. um This go around. Yeah. I just, I try. Here's where I messed up. Okay. I've been going to the gym and I've been running on the treadmill and I'm like, I should listen to the audio book while I run on the treadmill. Wrong. Don't do that. That doesn't work. We are only going to listen to one specific album from electric light orchestra because that's what we do whenever we run.
Speaker: And then I tried just reading the book and couldn't get into it. So then I watched the movie and I'm like, oh, no, I don't think I'm going to like this book. And as it turns out, it wasn't bad. was pretty good. Yeah. The book.
Speaker: Okay. Yeah. It's good hear because I kind of thought you hated everything. I did not particularly in enjoy anything. This is not for me. I'm not the target audience, but the book is well written. It's not a bad book. Right. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: I agree. All right, readers. So September is Emily's birthday month. Shout out to all you Virgos listening in. So to celebrate her existence, we'll be reading and watching one of her favorites, Misery by Stephen King. And by we, I might actually mean just Em, because i typically don't do horror and like, I'm going to give it a try, but I make no promises that I'll actually be able to finish the book or the movie because nightmares.
Speaker: I promise you, this one does not count as horror. You don't have to believe me because you're going to try anyway, but I promise it's not actually horror. It's horrifying. It's not horror. So everyone, make sure to join us on September 17th so that we can discuss Misery by Stephen King.
Speaker: Thank you for listening to Book Club, the movie, the podcast. Watch for new episodes out the third Thursday of each month. You can find us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen.
Speaker: Follow us on Instagram and TikTok at Book Club The Movie. You can also find us on Patreon, Facebook, or on our website, bookclubthemovie.com. This podcast was created and produced by Jen Moyer and M. Lord. Our music and mixing is by Jason Lord of Studio Topaz. you.
Speaker: Voice acted by Ethan Gallardo. And we just want to give a big thank you to our friends and family for your love and support. And thank you, dear listener, for joining our book club. See you next time, nerds.
Speaker: And buffs. Bye.
Speaker: seems a little bit unfair because they literally just became a thing and yet alex is ready to dtr and poppy just wants to enjoy that why did you write that
Speaker: i snuck it in there it's not wrong um
